ACBAR

At the request of organizers from the national NGO “Resilience, Environment and Humanitarian Aid Organization” (REHA), ACBAR on Monday, 5 June 2023 hosted a wide range of national and international NGO, CSOs,  government agencies, academia, youth groups and other environmental actors, all coming together to celebrate World Environment Day. Government agencies participating included representatives of ANDMA (Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority), the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) and NEPA (National Environmental Protection Agency). United National attendees included representatives from the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) also attended.
More than 60 attendees took part, looking at issues of environment, climate change, water, sanitation and hygiene, (WASH) and food security and agriculture that have been relatively overlooked and neglected over the past two years. Participants discussed the ways in which humanitarian crises put pressure on environmental resources, in the process emphasizing the urgent need for coordinated action to address these challenges and flagging that global warming and climate change are urgent, top-level priorities about which most people are willing to agree. The fruitful discussions conducted by REHA will hopefully serve as a springboard for future meetings bringing together all stakeholders to continue these important discussions.